1 Beer 1 Song

You know the phrase "just enough knowledge to be dangerous"? This episode embodies that phrase about as well as I can imagine. Just like the title says, we drink the Russian Imperial Stout from Courage Brewery (actually Wells & Young's) and we listen to a tune off the new Bob Dylan. Despite knowing next to nothing about either one of them, we still manage to yammer about them for 18 minutes. Oh, and Duquesne University is indeed in Pittsburgh, PA. I am very smart. -Tony

Second [AND FINAL] episode with Blake. Curse him and his damn sexy voice and insight. As for the content, well, it has been about 3 episodes since I poked Russ with a stick, so what better time than the present to poke Russ with not one but two sticks? We start by drinking Lady of the Woods from Cisco Brewers The Woods series. It is a crisp, refreshing, yet complex, wine-barrel-aged creation ... that also happens to be extremely sour. I have been apathetic about Cisco's other offerings, but Lady of the Woods is a great beer. We move along to [poorly] lament the demise of Hydra Head Records. Hydra Head was / is an institution. They are responsible for curating (and creating) some of the most heavy, dark, creepy, groovy, immense, challenging, crushingly beautiful music of the last 15-20 years. I gave Blake and Russ three bands to pick from: Botch, Isis, and Keelhaul. Listen to hear what they picked. The obscenity-laden tirade that results officially ruined this episode for Blake's mom. Sorry, Blake's mom. Some other notes: At a mind-numbing 27:24, episode 20 is almost 3 times as long as episode 12. I blame Blake. Won't happen again. Until it happens again. At 5:30, we roller blade through a brief conversation about asparagus pee. I did end up Googling it, and there isn't a definitive answer regarding whose pee smells and who can actually smell that smelly pee. The most plausible explanation appears to be a cokctail of volatile organic compounds AND a genetic predisposition for (or against) smelling said cocktail of compounds. GROSS. APPARENTLY I need to get better speakers with which to listen to the 1 Song portion of these clusters because the tinny little MacBook Pro speakers aren't doing the music any favors. Leave a comment if you'd like to donate some AWESOME speakers and I'll send you my address.

The first of two episodes with the irrepressible Blake Tyers. Things we know about Blake: 1. He has a deep, sexy voice and articulates himself very well 2. He knows a lot about beer 3. He knows a lot about music Based on these items, Blake will not be invited back because WHO THE HELL DOES HE THINK HE IS coming in here and showing us up like that. GOOD DAY, SIR. The phrase smell baby will be added to the list right underneath anal metal. We have our first official sponsor! Blake's friend Carlen brought a bottle of Allagash Curieux to the last Tall Brown brew night. It ended up not being drank/drunk/drinked that night, so we annexed it for the podcast. Curieux is not cheap, so thanks, Carlen! Speaking of thanking the sponsor, we got so exited about it that we peaked all the mics around the 16:41 mark. At the end of the song, around 11:56, SOMEONE'S cell phone is too close to something, and the result is about 30 seconds of cell phone morse code. I tried every which way tp edit around it, but no dice. These are some of the things you have to deal with when you live in the future. At some point near the end, I mention that 875 cases of Curieux would constitute something like two semi-trailers. I have no idea if this is even remotely true. Google isn't much help either. Someone in the industry tell us how many cases go into a full 18-wheeler shipment. Also, first new episode posted on the new site! Please let us know what you think. Stream the episode below. We are on iTunes. You have no excuses.

1 Beer 1 Song is now old enough to vote! And we celebrate with America’s own Third Voyage Double IPA from Sam Adams, aka AMERICA’S BREWERY (*not actually America’s brewery). We lead off with a historical discussion about the furniture in my basement before moving on to discuss the globalization of Cascade Hops (of which The Boston Beer Company claims to use varieties from three different continents). I also complain about East Coast / English-style beers, because they’re boring. The song is from the recently released Fang Island album, Major. It’s called Chompers. It is cheezeball and fun. It doesn’t hurt Russ’s feelings.

17th episode extravaganza featuring not one but TWO current beers from Georgia BOTH featuring the number 17 in one way or another. Two wildly different beers, and we talk ALL about it. The audio imbalance that has been plaguing us is still there but it’s not as bad as the previous two episodes. We also reviewed a song from the new Maserati album due out in October. As I mentioned before, we are in the process of migrating to a more permanent hosting solution, so I’m going to spend less time writing these dumb-ass episode summaries and more time working on that.

GreenFlash Rayon Vert and a track from the new Old Crow Medicine Show album (and maybe a little audio surprise). The volume discrepancy between Russ and I seems even worse on this episode despite having moved the mic quite a bit closer to Russ. I have some theories that have to do with mic angle, as in, my mouth is pointing right at the mic and Russ is pointing at the side of the mic. Whatever. Listen on headphones. We like the beer, despite all the head, RUSS. Listening to me pontificate about sour beers, I realize that I don’t really know that much about sour beers [relatively] and the things coming out of my mouth could be way, way wrong. I sound pretty smart, though, so suck it. Old Crow is good. The song is good. And the surprise is also good. Russ even invents a new genre of music.

A great beer idea. As for execution, well, execution is definitely a thing. And a new notch in our musical diversity belt - Broadway. As we discuss in the beginning, we have our fancy digital recorder mounted on a fancy boom stand, so the mics are at mouth level. Unfortunately, I am noticeably louder than Russ. And this issue persists in subsequent episodes. One could make the argument that I have a louder voice than Russ, but I think it sounds like there is a setting out of whack somewhere. ERMAHGERD, ERDEEO ERNGERNERRRINNNNG. So, yeah, bacon maple beer and a broadway song. Listen to this crap. Also, we are working on a new hosting / presentation setup, so stay tuned for that.

First of all, LONGEST EPISODE EVER. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This has been a technologically challenging couple of weeks. We recorded some episodes one night in August. The first one was terrible. DELETE. (We will revisit the beer and song/band later). The next two episodes didn’t survive the file transfer process. We are idiots. The final episode made it, so here you go. Unfortunately, in this episode, there are references to previous episodes that no longer exist. Here is a key to the non-sequiturs: Collaboration Not Litigation - This is a well-known beer. We will review it again in a future episode. Elevator Joke - We reviewed a new Maserati song. I love Russ. He means well. We will definitely review the new Maserati in a future episode, hey, maybe even with Collaboration Not Litigation. Wow, that was easy. RIP Jerry. Seth episode - Both a beer and a song (and a song-related fiasco) were influenced by our friend Seth. We will revisit the beer and perhaps the song from this ill-fated episode.

AKA The episode where Russ uses the “1,000 Suns” metaphor TWICE. It’s fun writing these posts because I get to make fun of Russ and he doesn’t get to respond. We drink Hoptimus Prime from Ruckus Brewing. The Ruckus website has one of those mind-numbingly frivolous age-check filters with multiple drop down menus on the landing page, BUT kudos to them for pre-loading the menus with a birthday from the 1950s, so all you have to do is click GO. We liked Hoptimus Prime (despite the name), particularly the finish. The song. Oh, the song. If you’re into it, Old Man Gloom washes over you like a 20-foot tsunami made of the tears of your enemies. If you’re not into it, your name is probably Russ, or you are my wife. Russ is not a fan. Actually Russ’s ranting causes him to say several things that make absolutely no sense. It’s wonderful. UPDATED: *Remember that time that Tony forget that Russ has the login and password to the tumblr [now WordPress]? Yeah that was awesome. Tony, eat a 1000 dicks. -Russ*